March AARL DX Contest

This past weekend the ARRL sponsored a DX Contest which I participated in as time allowed. I racked up 78 QSOs for 62 new DXCCs. I was hoping that would be enough to push me over the top for 100 DXCCs, but I fell short by 6 contacts. I’m sure I’ll fill in the blanks before the next big HF contest…

All contacts were made QRP via my KX3 on 5 watts or less. I backed down the power on several stations to qualify for more than a dozen 1,000 miles-per-watt awards. (I would have displayed the actual MPWs and country names in the table below but I couldn’t figure out how to get my logging program to export all those details.) Anyway, here are the QSOs I made this past weekend:

Date

TimeOn

Call

Freq

Mode

RST_S

RSTR

2014-03-02

21:54

RT0F

28.3069

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

21:49

LP1H

21.3431

SSB

57

59

2014-03-02

20:58

CQ8X

21.3569

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

18:39

OH0JFP

28.4832

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

17:41

OH2XX

28.5043

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

17:37

SK3W

28.6837

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

16:15

OR0A

28.3005

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

16:09

LX7I

21.3345

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

16:03

YT8WW

28.4235

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

16:01

OM5ZW

28.5553

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

15:53

V26M

28.7981

SSB

55

59

2014-03-02

15:48

DF9ZP

28.9531

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

15:44

OK1W

28.6648

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

15:40

II3W

28.5395

SSB

57

59

2014-03-02

01:13

6Y3M

14.3019

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

01:10

RW1A

14.2877

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

01:03

EC2DX

14.257

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

00:55

C6ANA

14.2848

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

00:48

NP2X

21.3536

SSB

59

59

2014-03-02

00:29

KH6LC

21.3362

SSB

54

59

2014-03-02

00:27

ZZ2T

21.4433

SSB

57

59

2014-03-01

22:04

JA1WWO

28.6205

SSB

53

59

2014-03-01

21:53

8P5A

21.4355

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

21:51

CE3/OZ1AA

21.2941

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

21:44

KL7DX

28.4411

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

21:43

TO22C

21.4045

SSB

56

59

2014-03-01

19:58

WP3DX

28.4649

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

19:55

KL2R

28.5418

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

19:43

VP9/W6PH

21.3522

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

19:39

EE7E

21.3138

SSB

56

59

2014-03-01

19:38

TI8M

21.3295

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

19:33

P40L

28.7151

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

19:32

KL7RA

21.347

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

19:18

VP5H

21.4466

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

19:16

XE2B

28.398

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

19:04

E71A

28.4909

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

19:00

E7TT

28.5492

SSB

53

59

2014-03-01

18:55

PJ6A

21.2176

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

18:47

HA8JV

28.3275

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

18:45

PJ2T

28.359

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

18:39

PJ4DE

28.3855

SSB

53

59

2014-03-01

18:26

EI9E

28.4523

SSB

53

59

2014-03-01

18:22

P40P

28.377

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

18:18

SN2M

28.5572

SSB

53

59

2014-03-01

18:09

PJ4G

28.3359

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

18:06

F5NBX

28.3415

SSB

56

59

2014-03-01

18:00

XE1BY

28.5445

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

17:59

TM0T

28.4339

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

17:58

9A9A

28.4141

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

17:58

PX5E

28.4303

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

17:56

PA2M

28.8902

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

17:52

G3Y

28.7523

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

16:33

PJ4DX

28.7973

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

16:32

F5OWT

28.7889

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

16:20

HI3K

21.1985

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

16:18

VP9/W6PH

28.41

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

16:15

P40L

21.2924

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

16:07

VP5H

28.3179

SSB

56

59

2014-03-01

16:00

GW7X

28.9251

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

15:59

CR2X

28.5953

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

15:56

CR6T

21.2665

SSB

56

59

2014-03-01

15:38

ES6Q

28.7208

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

15:36

S54ZZ

28.4845

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

15:31

9A7DX

21.3125

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

15:28

PJ2T

21.437

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

15:18

NP2P

28.3002

SSB

57

59

2014-03-01

15:14

HI3K

28.372

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

14:54

LZ2HR

28.8964

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

14:52

TM6M

28.4801

SSB

57

59

2014-03-01

14:48

EI3KD

28.4902

SSB

57

59

2014-03-01

14:48

HK1NA

21.3162

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

14:44

EF8R

28.5925

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

14:36

9A8WW

28.6004

SSB

57

57

2014-03-01

14:33

KP2M

28.3998

SSB

57

59

2014-03-01

14:28

CN2AA

21.35

SSB

55

59

2014-03-01

14:02

EA8TX

28.79

SSB

54

59

2014-03-01

05:20

8P5A

14.316

SSB

59

59

2014-03-01

03:24

FY5FY

21

SSB

59

59

Obviously 10m was HOT that weekend and most other bands were pretty light on the noise too. Bonus points if you can identify the 3 boo-boos I made. I should also mention that I didn’t submit my log to the ARRL to be an official contestant since I used a DX Cluster to locate all of these stations. I’d like to think I would have racked up a nice score operating QRP but I was more interested in shooting for a QRP DXCC award than strictly following the rules to officially participate in the contest.

After this weekend I finally have more QSOs at home than I do on mountain summits via SOTA. Not a bad run for a greenhorn QRP station huh? 😀

Aaron Melton

2 responses to March AARL DX Contest

Hello Aaron, thank you for the interesting post on ARRL DX contest. It’s an impressive list. FB. Yes! It’s great fun to reduce the power to make 1000 Miles per Watt QSO’s.
Most of the time I use CW, so I can make QSO’s with 5 Watt down to 50 mW or less, when the propagation is good to very good.
For QSO’s with less than 500 mW, I use attenuators of 10 dB or 20 dB.
Good luck with QRP and QRPp,
73,Bert PA1B

Thanks for the comment. I thought I might have you in the logs from this contest, but perhaps you stumbled across this post some other way (searching for miles-per-watt?). The 1,000 Miles Per Watt is a new concept for me. I read a few guys discussing it on the North Georgia QRP Club discussion list and thought I might give it a try. It had never previously occurred to me that I could just turn the dial to the left and back off the power for countries that were less than 5,000 miles away from my QTH.

While I don’t know CW with any proficiency to have attempted any contacts with it, I have talked to another nearby ham using 100mW power, which I believe is the lowest power settings on an Elecraft KX3. Also, thanks for providing your website: I see a lot of good material on what you’re able to accomplish with such little power!